Astroturfing as a strategy for manipulating public opinion on Twitter during the pandemic in Spain

What is it about?

This work aims to establish whether astroturfing was used during the Covid-19 pandemic to manipulate Spanish public opinion through Twitter. This study analyzes tweets published in Spanish and geolocated in the Philippines. Its first objective is to determine the existence of an organized network that directs its messages mainly towards Spain. A preliminary collection of 1,496,596 tweets was carried out to determine the non-existence of a random network. After determining its 14 main clusters, 280 users with medium-low profiles of participation and micro- and nano-influencer traits were randomly selected and followed for 103 days for a total of 309,947 tweets. Network science, text mining, sentiment and emotion, and bot probability analyses were performed using Gephi and R.

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Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Findings suggest an ultra-small-world phenomenon, which would determine the existence of a possible organized network that tries not to be easily identifiable. The data analyzed confirms a digital communication scenario in which astroturfing is used to manipulate public opinion through non-influencers (cybertroops). These users create and disseminate content with proximity and closeness to different groups of public opinion, mixing topics of general interest with disinformation or polarized content.

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